


How It Ends

by LadyC



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1708346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyC/pseuds/LadyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months after the events of DOFP, Erik returns to the mansion to pay Charles a visit. Charles wonders if his glimpse of the future means there may be hope for them yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Titled changed when I realized I accidentally gave my fic the same title as pocky_slash's excellent DOFP fic.

It had been half a year since a time-travelling mutant had arrived on Charles’s doorstep and convinced him to come help him save the world. Six months since he’d laid eyes on Erik for the first time in ten years and couldn’t help but punch him in the face. Six months since they’d argued on the plane and made up, first with chess and then with a hasty, heated encounter in the plane’s lavatory. Six months since Erik tried to kill the president and dropped pieces of a stadium on top of Charles and Charles let him go anyway.

It had been two months since Charles had last seen Erik, when he had showed up at the school, claiming to be checking up on him. Erik had ended up apologizing again and Charles forgave him, being careful to explain that forgiveness was really more about the wronged party choosing to not dwell in the past than about saying that whatever happened was okay. Erik could accept that. He had seemed happy to see that Charles’s powers were back at full capacity and that the school would be operational by the next semester. Charles did not ask him to stay and he did not offer to.

It had been one week since Charles had dreamed about his future self again and woke up feeling a burgeoning hope that he fought to tamp down.

Today, Charles was tired.

He had spent the entire morning filling out paperwork to get the school accredited and would need to follow up with calls and letters later, but Hank had insisted he take a break and Charles couldn’t bring himself to argue.

Charles opened the door to his study and rolled into the room. If he had been paying more attention, he might have noticed the psychic blank space that occupied the center of the room. As such, he had a bit of a shock when he saw Erik standing there, waiting for him. Erik wore casual clothes, jeans and a button down, but that awful helmet was still on his head.

Charles attempted to radiate a calmness he did not feel as he gently closed the door behind him. “Erik. Or should I just call you Magneto now?”

“Always Erik to you, Charles.”

“Erik is hard to recognize beneath that atrocious thing.”

Erik paused in thought for a moment, then removed his helmet. Charles gaped and had to force himself not to reach out with his powers. He reminded himself that he probably didn’t want to know what Erik was thinking.

Erik just shrugged as he put the helmet down on an end table. “I trust you.”

“Why? Las time we saw each other, I did exactly what you always feared I would.” Charles gestured vaguely to his head.

“You had me lift hunks of metal off of you that I had dropped on top of you in the first place. Then you let me go. I had just betrayed you…”

“Again,” Charles couldn’t help but interject.

“Again. Once you were in my head, you could have done anything. Made me submit to authorities willingly. Made me incapable of killing. Made me agree with anything you said.”

“Perhaps I should have.” He had asked himself many times why he hadn’t and remained unable to come up with a reasonable answer.

“But you didn’t. And the fact that you did it then tells me I have nothing to fear from you in that regard now.”

Without preface or permission, Erik sat in an armchair and began to set up the chessboard. Charles found himself moving to the side opposite him without really intending to.

Erik continued speaking as he initiated the Ruy Lopez. “You told me once that you saw good in me. I imagine that’s no longer the case.”

“I believe there is some good in everyone. Whether we can be considered good people depends on the choices we make.”

“And you don’t believe I have made the choices of a good man.”

Charles stared at the board for a moment and moved his king’s pawn before responding. “There’s always hope for the future.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do.”

“Your optimism is admirable, Charles. Naïve, but admirable.”

“Not so naïve in this particular instance, my friend. I’ve seen how it ends.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Logan allowed me to enter his consciousness and I was able to communicate with my future self through him. And we were both there, Erik. I didn’t know the others in the room – we must have not met them yet – but I know your face as well as my own. Somehow we find a way because we’re together in the future. That’s how it ends.”

For the first time Cuba, Charles thought he could see a glimmer of hope in Erik’s eyes that matched his own. However, being Erik, he appeared to blink it away and said, “Well, that’s how it ended. But we’ve changed the future now. We have no idea where we’ll end up.”

“Some things don’t change. For better and worse. For instance, I will likely be bald in any version of the future.”

Erik’s eyes widened and he put down the knight he was holding, game forgotten. “Bald? Completely?”

“Not a hair on my head, I’m afraid to say.”

“And I?”

Charles sighed dramatically. “You, of course, are handsome as ever and have a full head of silver hair. Still wearing the ridiculous purple getup, but you manage to look distinguished in spite of it.”

Erik couldn’t wholly manage to hide his gratification. “I’m sure you’ll look quite distinguished yourself, Charles.”

“I don’t know about that. I’m still in the chair. Ah well, I suppose my young students won’t care if their professor is a fragile, broken, hairless old man.” He had been aiming for humor, but probably shouldn’t have been surprised at the bitterness that came through.

Erik looked struck, then determination came into his eyes. He rose and pushed the table aside, then knelt down in front of Charles’s wheelchair.

“Charles. I could never see you as broken or fragile.”

Erik reached up and began to run a hand through Charles’s hair. It was still long now, stopping just above his shoulders, and Erik’s fingers brushed against the stubble on his cheeks. Charles closed his eyes and allowed himself to enjoy the sensation. “And we’ll take the hairless part as it comes,” whispered Erik.

Charles laughed and opened his eyes, surprised to see that the cold steel he’d grown used to in Erik’s eyes had been replaced by what he could have sworn was affection.

When Erik leaned in to kiss him, it wasn’t in him to protest.

This was worlds away from how it had been on the plane – fast and rough, tinged with anger and over too quickly. Now, Erik was gentle, nearly reverent, as he explored Charles with his hands and his mouth. Charles allowed himself to pursue his own explorations, running his hands along Erik’s toned biceps and broad shoulders. He could barely believe how much he had missed this.

Erik kissed his way down Charles throat until he reached his collar. He began to unbutton his shirt, then paused, pulling back just enough to meet Charles’s eyes, wordlessly asking for permission.

Charles stared back, blue on grey. This was probably a terrible idea. He could dismiss the first time as a heat of the moment mistake, minds too clouded with fear and rage and lust to think straight, but this… this would mean something.

Charles nodded and brought their lips together, allowing the taste and feel of Erik to drive away his doubts. His thoughts narrowed to just the simple fact that he wanted him, had wanted him every night for the past eleven years.

As Erik fumbled to undo his shirt without breaking their kiss, Charles did likewise, equally clumsy. Once Erik had Charles’s shirt open, he refocused on the kiss and began to work Charles’s bottom lip with his teeth.

Charles blamed the effort it took to suppress a moan for not hearing the door open. The next thing he was aware of a stuttering voice. “Professor?”

Charles tore himself away from Erik and turned to see Hank standing in the doorway, trying and failing to remove the shocked expression from his face. “Hank!” He searched desperately for anything vaguely appropriate that he could say, but his lust-addled brain was useless to him at the moment and he was becoming uncomfortably aware of his open shirt and the marks he was certain were already beginning to show on his neck.

He glanced over at Erik, who simply nodded a greeting in Hank’s general direction. “McCoy,” he said, sounding disconcertingly unperturbed.

Eventually, Charles was able to get out a weak, “How can I help you?”

“Um, I wanted to get your, uh, thoughts on a new policy for… You know what? It can wait. You want to go ahead and…?” Hank trailed off and wiggled his fingers at his head.

“Ah. Hank, are you certain?”

“I promise you that I could not be more sure.”

“Well, then. I will see you in the morning.” He pressed his fingers to his temple for a moment and then Hank closed the door and walked away, blissfully ignorant of the last five minutes.

Charles waited until he could no longer hear Hank’s retreating footsteps before turning back to Erik, who was watching him with clear amusement. “Good chap, Hank.”

“Evidently.” Erik stretched and arose, beginning to redo the buttons on his shirt.

“Um, Erik? What are you doing?”

“I imagine that little interruption has brought you back to your senses and you are now feeling that this was all a mistake. I am leaving now to spare you the awkwardness of needing to find a polite way to ask me to get out and never mention this again.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. That probably should have been his reaction.

And yet.

“Why don’t you leave the mind-reading to me?”

“I know you, Charles, and I’m sure...”

“Erik, please stop talking and take me to bed.”

 

* * *

 

To Charles’s great relief, Erik did not put the helmet back on until he was standing at the gates of the mansion preparing to leave. Almost as much as the sex, Charles had missed the pleasant buzz of Erik’s mind in the few rare moments that he allowed himself to relax. The bright spots that he saw in Erik’s memory at those times, many of which he was moved to learn featured him, reaffirmed his hope for the potential of a better future for both of them.

“So.” Erik seemed to be searching for the appropriate words for the situation. He soon gave it up as a lost cause. “I guess this is goodbye, old friend.”

“I suppose it is. Can I expect you again soon?”

Erik hesitated. They were still a long way off from that future. But Charles had always believed that there were certain things in life worth waiting for.

“Just know that you are always welcome here, old friend.”

He extended a hand and Erik grasped it firmly, their locked eyes saying more than either of them could at this point in time.

Erik squeezed his hand and gave him one last smile before turning and walking away. Charles watched his retreating form until he disappeared behind a copse of trees, then made his way back to the mansion’s front door. He found Hank waiting for him.

“Was that Magneto?”

“It was Erik,” he corrected mildly.  

“Huh.” Hank looked a bit puzzled.

“You disapprove?”

“I probably should, but you know what? I’m feeling strangely generous towards him.”

Charles bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. “So am I. You’re usually the one who answers the door - you’ll let me know next time he visits, yes?”

“Sure thing, Professor.” Hank looked thoughtful. “You think there’ll be a next time?”

“I do, Hank. I truly do.”


End file.
